


A Grudge Withheld

by dreamlittleyo



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Confessions, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, First Time, Romance, Secrets, Sexual Content, Trust Issues, Wordcount: 1.000-3.000, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000, Wordcount: Over 1.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-11
Updated: 2014-02-11
Packaged: 2018-01-11 22:35:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1178775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamlittleyo/pseuds/dreamlittleyo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Jo's twenty-first birthday, and John honestly doesn't know how she's managed to track him down tonight.<br/>(<i>prompts: driving, direct, strength</i>)</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Grudge Withheld

She's direct as hell. 

It's a quality John Winchester has always admired about the girl, but it leaves him little room to maneuver now. 

"Jo." He sounds just as tired and guilty as he feels, but he wants what she's offering (more than he'll ever admit). "You know I can't. There a hundred reasons it's a terrible idea." The fact that Ellen would kill him doesn't even make the top fifty.

It's Jo's twenty-first birthday, and John honestly doesn't know how she's managed to track him down tonight. Even Dean doesn't know where he is right now (they've been pursuing separate leads, different hunts). But somehow here's Jo, surfacing on his doorstep in the rain, and storming into his motel room like she owns the place. Like there's nothing wrong at all with her being here.

Like there's nothing wrong with her turning up out of the blue and announcing that she's done waiting. She's done watching John pretend not to notice her. 

"You want me." She makes it sound like the simplest truth in the world. "I'm here. I want you, too. What's the big deal?"

"It ain't that simple," John protests. 

"Then make it simple."

It's Jo Harvelle's birthday, and she's standing right in front of him, announcing that John can have exactly what he's been trying not to want for the past three years. She's earnest, and she's sure, and she has no idea how very wrong she is. 

For all that John has never been strong enough to confess to her the harm he's done her family, he realizes he has no choice now.

It takes him a full minute to make the words come, and then they sound gritty and wrong. 

"Did Ellen ever tell you what happened to your dad?" 

Jo's expression clouds, confusion drawing her eyebrows down and her mouth into a straight line.

"She said it was an accident," Jo says. "He died on a hunt." There's wariness in her expression. She has a hunter's instincts, inherited from her parents and honed in her own right, and those instincts must be screaming at her now. 

"There's a little more to the story than that." And then, forcing the confession past the knot in his throat, he tells her the truth. He spares no detail, knows he's condemning himself in her eyes. He can't even look at her while he speaks. 

By the time he's finished, the rain outside has stopped. Only an angry wind remains, noisy against the windows. 

John expects a fight. But instead, Jo just turns her back and walks right out the door. She puts John Winchester behind her (maybe forever) and climbs into her car. As she pulls out of the parking lot and drives away, John's heart gives a violent shudder to see her go.

He doesn't hear from her over the next six months. Ellen calls him a couple times, wondering why he's stopped coming by the Roadhouse, asking if everything is all right. Jo doesn't call, but John isn't expecting her to. That bridge is well and truly burned. Whenever he finds himself distracted by the hollow ache in his chest, he tells himself it's only guilt. Nothing more. Nothing worse. Jo Harvelle is just a girl John has no business thinking about, and it's not her conspicuous absence from his life making him feel this way. John's not some lovestruck idiot to let a woman get under his skin, certainly not a woman as young and out of bounds as Jo. 

He's north of the Canadian border, hunting for a psychic that might know a thing or two about demons (about one demon in particular) when he returns to his motel and sees a light on in his own window. It's late, almost midnight, but it was daylight when he set out. There's no way he left that lamp on. His instincts, already on high alert, thrum beneath his skin.

He unlocks the door carefully, silently, and bursts through with gun drawn.

Inside, he finds no dangerous intruder awaiting him. There's only Jo, sitting cross-legged at the foot of his bed and watching him with dark eyes. Her hands are empty. John wonders how long she's been waiting.

"What the hell are you doing here?" he demands, lowering his gun and thumbing the safety on. He sets the weapon down on the table beside the window, then kicks the door shut hard, deadbolting and chaining it before turning his full attention to the small, determined girl on his bed. 

"What? You thought I'd let you get the last word?" she snaps. She freezes for an instant, then her posture visibly relaxes, like she's forcing herself to a calm she doesn't feel. When she speaks again there's still anger in her voice—shadows in her eyes—but she sounds steady. "I needed to see you."

John doesn't respond, mostly because he can't think of a single damn thing to say. His own posture is rigid as he waits, poised for the executioner's axe. He can't fathom why she's here. It's not an apology she wants. He senses that much in the subdued tension in her shoulders. But what, then? What can her purpose possibly be?

"For fuck's sake, would you sit?" she says, sounding more exasperated than angry. She gestures at the foot of the bed beside her, and though the space she indicates is narrow, John sits. His arm brushes her shoulder as he settles, and he keeps his feet on the floor, leaning forward to brace both elbows on his knees. He clasps his hands to keep himself still, and stares straight ahead at the gaudy green wallpaper.

The silence is awful, but John lets it extend unbroken between them. When it grows unbearable, Jo finally speaks.

"I don't think I'll ever be able to forgive you. After you told me the truth... I never wanted to see you again." Grim honesty shadows her words, and she fidgets beside him, her elbow brushing his side carelessly. "I deleted your number from my phone. Which might've helped if I didn't have it memorized." 

"Why are you here?" John asks, helpless and quiet, still staring at the wall instead of her. "Nothing I say will change anything. I can't bring your dad back, and no apology in the world can make that right."

"I know," Jo says, just as softly.

"Then _why_ ," John presses.

"Because it turns out, it doesn't matter if I forgive you or not. I still can't stay away."

John startles at her admission, and he turns his head without thought, meeting her eyes and blinking with surprise. She glares at him, and her expression is a chaotic mess of emotions. Anger, resolve, resignation. And beneath all that, a quiet sadness that breaks his heart.

"I tried to put you behind me," she says, sounding every bit as helpless as John feels. 

Then, with a swiftness that leaves him no room for retreat, she leans close and kisses him. John's eyes fall closed, and his pulse speeds dangerously at the soft, sure press of her mouth. 

When she pulls back, there are tears reddening her eyes.

"I'll never stop being angry at you," she says. "You lied to me. For _years_. How am I ever supposed to trust you?" 

John stands in a rush, furious with himself. He owes Jo better than this. Her words are sharp with honesty, and they cut all the deeper for John's certainty that he will lie to her again. He has to. There's too much at stake—the demon, his boys, the coming storm—and if he has to lie to protect her, he'll do it in a heartbeat. She _can't_ trust him, and he should have the integrity to say so.

Instead he stands with his back to her and crosses his arms tightly. He offers no response.

"Stubborn ass," Jo mutters. From the creak of the mattress John knows she's rising, and though her footsteps are silent he's not the slightest bit surprised when she sets a hand on his bicep.

"John," she says, tugging at his arm. He considers resisting, but there's no point. He follows her summons and turns to face her, uncrossing his arms and struggling to keep his expression blank. 

"Why are you still here?" he asks. He doesn't point out that it's not just a question of forgiveness. It's countless other reasons he doesn't get to have this. It's her youth, her hope for a normal life, her future. It's the fact that John is used up, a hunter with nothing left to offer, nothing worthy of a girl with so much strength and spirit and life. It's the fact that she's younger than either of his own children. It's the grim knowledge that any life he might hope to offer her will be just as fucked up as he is.

It's his gradual understand of the trap his family has fallen into—and the fact that, even if he manages to protect his boys, there's little chance he himself will survive.

He says none of these things, because he knows none of them will sway Jo. The fact that she's here at all proves she doesn't care. 

"Do you want me to leave?" she asks. Defiance sparks in her eyes, and her mouth thins into a stubborn line. Her expression commands honesty. John knows he will inevitably lie to her again someday, but not tonight. Not about this. 

"No," he admits. 

This time, when she kisses him, he is ready for it. As her arms slip up around his shoulders, he finally stops fighting. She makes an eager sound low in her throat when John puts his hands on her, and she presses closer, presses the soft lines of her body deliberately against him. There's invitation in her warmth, her curves, her greedy kisses, and John lifts her easily off the floor. 

She wraps her legs around his waist, nips at his lower lip in approval, and John stops thinking.

The mattress is old and cheap, and it creaks noisily beneath their weight as he lowers her to the bed. The lamplight, dull and yellow, casts stark shadows across their skin. They undress each other with frustrated impatience, rough hands and exposed skin, until they come together for hungrier kisses. 

John is too hot, flushed with his own arousal. Jo is eager energy, arching against him, reaching down between their bodies to take him in hand. 

Even before he enters her, he knows he isn't her first. It makes little difference—he is not a good man, and even if she were a virgin he doubts he could stop himself now—but there's still relief in the knowledge. He groans at the feel of her, the tight heat of her body as he slides in, and his heart stutters at Jo's breathless gasp. 

Just like this. 

They are perfect, just like this. 

He takes her wrists in his hands and pins them to the pillows on either side of her head. He holds them there as he stares down into her eyes. Motionless. Drawing the moment out cruelly, breathless himself at the wild look in her eyes. 

" _Move_ ," she snarls, rolling her hips to take him deeper, arching deliberately beneath him. 

John obeys. He moves. And Jo moves with him, a rising tempo shared between them, until at last both are spent.

In the unsteady quiet of after, Jo settles beside him, staying within reach but only touching where their arms brush. She makes no move to get out of the bed and gather her discarded clothing, and her stillness makes it clear she intends to stay the night. For all that John is caught in a dawning mess of awkwardness and guilt, he's glad of her proximity. He already lost her once; he can't bear the thought of watching her leave now.

"How long can you stay?" he asks, trying to sound casual and failing by about ten miles. 

"A couple days," she says. Then, after a pause that John doesn't know how to read, she adds, "I'm going to drop out of school when the semester ends."

John turns his head to blink at her in surprise, then shifts onto his side so he can look her properly in the eye.

"Why would you do that?" he asks. 

"Because I don't want a degree," she says. "And I'm sick of playing at 'normal' on a campus where everyone knows I'm a freak. If I'm going to be a hunter, the Roadhouse is the best place for me." 

"A hunter," John echoes, suddenly terrified. 

"Yeah. It's all I've ever really wanted. Even before college, I didn't... I couldn't pretend, you know? What's the point when you know just how badly the world is fucked?"

"Jo, you need to really think about this. Hunting is a crappy way to live. It's dangerous, it's gruesome, and it's lonely." He makes himself pause to inhale slowly, but the measured breath does nothing to calm him. "You deserve better. Your mom, too. It'll kill her if something happens to you."

"I know," Jo admits. The resolve in her expression holds steady.

"But you're going to drop out of school anyway."

"I have to." 

John flops onto his back, out of arguments. The idea of Jo getting hurt sits like lead in his gut, but he's not going to change her mind. He can tell just by looking in her eyes. He sighs tiredly, settling back against the pillows and staring up at the ceiling.

A moment passes in disjointed silence, and then Jo slips closer, curling against his side now and draping an arm across his stomach. John shifts, raises his arm to let her settle properly against him, and her cheek presses warmly into his shoulder. 

"I won't ask to hunt with you," she says softly. "I think we both know that would be a bad idea." 

John doesn't bother responding to such an obvious a truth.

"But I have to do this," Jo insists. "You understand that, right?"

"Yeah," John says, reluctant but honest. "I suppose you do."


End file.
